An arrest affidavit The Dispatch obtained from Lowndes County Justice Court sheds light on the tumultuous relationship between a weekend fatal shooting victim and the woman he was allegedly attacking when he was shot.

The wife of a former Palmer Home employee accused of sexually abusing children testified Thursday her husband was charged after more than a year of a strained relationship with one of the two alleged victims.

The attorney for a former Palmer Home employee accused of sexual battery was formally sanctioned in Lowndes Circuit Court Wednesday after he referred to a victim's medical history in front of the jury.

Starkville resident James Bardwell had a choice.
He could go to trial for sexual battery and two counts of being a convicted felon in possession of a weapon. Or, he could accept a plea agreement from the state to confess to the weapons charges, spend the next 18 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections and not have to register as a sex offender when released.